The paper
of Alexis F.L.A. Powell, F. Keith Barker, Scott M. Lanyon, Kevin J.
Burns, John Klicka, Irby J. Lovette (2014) A comprehensive species-level
molecular phylogeny of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae) Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2013.11.009offers radically
new insights into the phylogeny of all four subfamilies included in the
Icteridae: Sturnellinae: Meadowlarks; Cacicinae: Caciques and Oropendolas;
Icterinae: Orioles; Agelaiinae: Blackbirds, Cowbirds and Grackles.To quote from their abstract:

“Using
mitochondrial gene sequences from all ~108 currently recognized species 7 and
six additional distinct lineages, together with strategic sampling of four
nuclear loci and 8 whole mitochondrial genomes, we were able to resolve most
relationships with high confidence.Our phylogeny is consistent with the strongly supported results of past
studies, but it also contains many novel inferences of relationship, including
unexpected placement of some newly sampled taxa, resolution of relationships
among major clades within Icteridae, and resolution of genus-level
relationships within the largest of those clades, the grackles and allies.”

The South
American Checklist currently assigns Casqued Oropendola (oseryi) to the genus Clypicterus
Bonaparte, 1850, and Band-tailed Oropendola (latirostris) to Ocyalus
Waterhouse, 1841.Yet in every one of the 4 trees
in Powell et al (2013), these two species are nested within the genus Cacicus LacépŹde, 1799.

In this figure, latirostris forms a sister-clade with Cacicus haemorrhous, and although thisclade enjoys only 49% support, the whole clade, consisting of oseryi, haemorrhous and latirostris,
has 100% support.

Figure 2 shows: “Phylogeny
of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae) inferred from nuclear DNA sequences of
46 taxa (outgroups not shown). The topology shown here is the single best tree
6 (_lnL = 14620.36) found under
maximum likelihood (ML). Nonparametric bootstrap percentages from ML analysis
appear immediately above or below branches. Filled circles indicate nodeswith estimated posterior
probabilities of >_0.95 in Bayesian analyses of the concatenated dataset,
and filled squares indicate nodes that also received posterior probability
estimates of >_0.95 in species-tree analyses.”

In this figure Ocyalus latirostris forms a sister-clade with Cacicus sclateri with a ML figure of 96%, and square for this clade
is filled.

Figure 3 shows: “Phylogeny
of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear
DNA sequences of 46 taxa (outgroups not shown). The topology shown here is the
single best tree (-lnL = 105577.92)
found under maximum likelihood (ML). Nonparametric bootstrap percentages from
ML analysis appear immediately above or below branches. Filled circlesindicate nodes with estimated
posterior probabilities of >_0.95 in Bayesian analyses of the concatenated
dataset, and filled squares indicate nodes that also received posterior
probability estimates of __0.95 in species-tree analyses.”

As in Figure 2, Ocyalus latirostris forms a sister-clade with Cacicus haemorrhous, this time with 98% ML probability, and again
the node joining them has a filled square.

Finally Figure 4 displays: “Phylogeny
of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear
DNA sequences of 118 taxa (outgroups not shown). The topology shown here is the
single best tree (-lnL = 127652.47)
found under maximum likelihood (ML). Nonparametric bootstrap percentages from
ML analysis appear immediately above or below branches. Filledcircles indicate nodes with
estimated posterior probabilities of __0.95 in Bayesian analyses of the same
concatenated dataset.”

This tree shows Clypicterus oseryi forming a sister-clade to Cacicus haemorrhous, and the junction of these forms a sister-clade
with Ocyalus latirostris. Although
the junction of oseryi and haemorrhous has only 48% support, the
node combining all three taxa has 100% ML support and the node has a filled
circle which indicates that it has posterior probabilities of >_0.95 in
Bayesian analyses of the same concatenated dataset.

Thus the proposal is that Clypicterus oseryi and Ocyalus latirostris become Cacicus oseryi and Cacicus latirostris.

Comments solicited from
Alexis Powell: “The nesting
of Clypicterus and Ocyalus within Cacicus is strongly and independently supported by nuclear and
mitochondrial loci (Price and Lanyon 2004, Powell et al. 2014). Renaming them
to make Cacicus monophyletic seems
more reasonable/conservative than the alternative of erecting/resurrecting 3 or
more genera for clades of species now placed in Cacicus.”

Comments from Remsen: “YES.The genetic data require this merger … or the fracture of Cacicus into multiple genera, which
would be particularly cumbersome because the type species for Cacicus is haemorrhous.Incidentally, the tail pattern of latirostris
is very cacique-like.If this
passes, we will need a proposal on English names, i.e., to change the two
ex-oropendolas to caciques.”

Comments
from Stiles:
“YES. Given the genetic data, the only alternative would be to split Cacicus into a least four genera, which
I find unwieldy to say the least.”

Comments from Zimmer: “YES.The genetic data dictate a change, and it is either this or we
erect/resurrect several additional genera, which nobody seems to want.”

Comments from Jaramillo: “YES - but grudgingly. There must be something else
going on here, I can’t believe that the plumage of Clypicterus, is so oropendola like for no reason. I can’t tell you what
that reason is now, but it is uncannily an oropendola. I wonder if there is
either some ancient transfer of genes that went on here, or perhaps there is
some mimicry going on…something weird. I just can’t put my finger on it, but
cannot argue against the genetic data as strong as it is.”

Comments
from Robbins: “YES. Wow, what surprising results! Yes, to subsuming
these two unique taxa into Cacicus,
instead of erecting a number of genera.“